Quick Tender no more?

20 May 2011

Disturbing reports this week amongst player forums where Quick Tender, one of the primary eWallets that US based players rely on to make transfers, has had its bank accounts frozen.

US based players had been complaining in Casinomeister's forum that they had made withdrawals using Quick Tender - but no joy, they had not received their funds. The administrators of QT were made aware of these problems via these complaints and investigated the problem. The funds had left their European bank and were accepted by the US based banks...and the funds were frozen. No one contacted Quick Tender; it was like the money just ended up in a black hole. The administrators of Quick Tender made this statement:

"The management of Quicktender would like to make the following statement
regarding the current situation with UseMyWallet/Quicktender withdrawals:

We have operated a reputable and reliable payment mechanism for US customers
since 2006. Our reputation is important to us, and until recently there has
never been any question that players and merchants would be paid. In order
to achieve this, we have built over many years relationships with payment
intermediaries that share our values of honesty and integrity. In the
jurisdictions from which we offer our services we are proud to be properly
licensed and constituted, and have even worked with US law enforcement on
occasions where criminal activity has been identified.

However, we cannot always predict some of the vagaries of the US
administration. Over the past 2 weeks we have in good faith transmitted
withdrawals initiated by Quicktender account holders to beneficiary bank
accounts in the US. The money left our account in Europe. It was only in
response to increasing complaints from our customers that we recognised
there was a problem, and asked our bank to investigate. It emerges that the
money has been accumulated in our bank's correspondent banking partners
accounts in the US, and has been frozen. We suspect it is possible that
these funds may be subject to a seizure order by the US authorities. We
would stress that we do not have bank accounts in the US of our own, and
that the funds have left our account Europe.

It is our express intention to ensure that the funds of our account holders
are safe. For this reason we have decided to suspend future withdrawals
until we understand what has happened to the money that has been frozen. If
we continue to transmit bank wires into the US we could find that these
funds also do not reach their ultimate beneficiaries. This would simply make
the problem worse.

We ask our customers to bear with us in these difficult times. Please be
assured that we have always honored our obligations in the past, and that we
will make every effort to overcome these current difficulties. It is not in
the interests of anybody to attempt to financially impact QuickTender
further. These actions may impact the future viability of the company and
the ability of the company to pay its customers. We are assessing our
current exposure, and how best to reintroduce withdrawals safely.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their past
loyalty, and to reiterate that we will take all possible steps to ensure
that our customers money is secure."

Several days later and still...nothing. UNfortunately for US based players, this was one of the last reputable eWallets that they had at their disposal to play online.